Same-sex marriage will be a bust for civilization

Lisa Bracken believes that legalization of same-sex marriage would be good for Oklahoma’s economy (“Same-sex marriage can be boon for economy”[1]). She is wrong on two counts.

In the short-term, the supposed economic gains will be enormously offset by costs associated with societal dysfunction caused by same-sex marriage. Even though the legitimization of same-sex marriage is relatively new, its devastating effects are already being felt in those countries that have allowed it. Documenting 10 years of same-sex marriage and civil unions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Hoover Institution researcher Stanley Kurtz found that it has led to far fewer marriages and soaring illegitimacy in which “80 percent of firstborn children are born out of wedlock, and 60 percent of children born thereafter are born to unwed parents. This has a devastating impact on children since unmarried parents are much more likely to separate.” Kurtz wrote, “Marriage in Scandinavia is in deep decline, with children shouldering the burden of rising rates of family dissolution. And the mainspring of the decline—an increasingly sharp separation between marriage and parenthood—can be linked to gay marriage.”[2]

In the longer term, homosexuality and same-sex marriage undermines society. The central cultural vision upon on which the nation was founded was based on biblical Christianity and its understanding of the nature of man and his origins. The truth of the Christian worldview of marriage as being between a man and woman is supported by the fact that it is a cultural universal imprinted on human nature and common to all people groups, all cultures, and all ages in history. Heterosexual marriage is the well-spring of civilization, and its centrality in the human experience is indisputable. Humans have fashioned numerous methods by which to organize their societies, but the common link to all is the family unit—a father, a mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring.

Supporters of homosexuality believe that they have the right to marry just as heterosexuals, and those rights are based on equality. However, homosexuality is a choice, and choice does not automatically equate with a “right to” nor mandate equal consideration. Many people may have a predilection to alcohol, criminality, or some other activity including homosexuality. But all are choices and with God’s help those tendencies can be conquered.

In his book Visions of Order-The Cultural Crisis of Our Time published 50 year ago, Richard Weaver states that when a culture “… by ignorant popular attitudes or by social derangements” imposes a political concept that creates a different principle of ordering society contrary to universal truths, dissatisfactions arise because society has tampered with the “nature of things.”[3] Homosexuality is a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. Where traditional marriage declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.

Homosexuality and same-sex marriage are issues that must ultimately be dealt with in the arena of morality and cultural health. The economic considerations of Chamber of Commerce cheerleaders such as Ms. Bracken are both inappropriate and crass with regard to the debate about homosexuality and demands for its legitimization through same-sex marriage. But such dollars and cents concerns are to be expected from those with a humanistic view of life based on the material and denial of universal and timeless concepts of right and wrong.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Lisa Bracken, “Same-sex marriage can be boon for economy,” Tulsa World, September 27, 2014, A-19.
[2] D. James Kennedy, Ph.D., “Five Good Reasons to Reject Same-Sex Marriage,” Coral Ridge Ministries – Crosswalk.com, July 7, 2004. http://www.crosswalk.com/1272492/ (accessed September 30, 2014).
[3] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), p. 22.